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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24043903">I've Got You, Babe</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter'>crossingwinter</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Sickfic, vomit cw</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 16:28:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,349</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24043903</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben gets the flu.</p><p>Then Rey gets the flu.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>62</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>449</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>F@$k Cancer in the Ass (For a Good Cause)</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I've Got You, Babe</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minstrels/gifts">Minstrels</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Lucy is running <a href="https://fundraise.ccalliance.org/lucyc">a fundraiser for the Colorectal Cancer Alliance</a>.  I promised to write a fic if the campaign passed $5k and it did.  The Reylo Fandom's generosity continues to blow me away.  </p><p>Lucy requested a sickfic so here it is.  I aimed for fluffy, which means it didn't manage to leave the "sex jokes" territory and make it to the "sex" territory, but I hope you enjoy anyway &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>She gets the text at a little past noon, when she’s grabbing lunch in the cafeteria.  </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Not feeling great so I’m heading home.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Rey frowns.  </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Define not feeling great.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Vomited between second and third period.  I think it’s a stomach bug.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Aches? Pains? Congestion?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She can practically see Ben rolling his eyes.  </span>
  <em>
    <span>Don’t get all doctor on me, </span>
  </em>
  <span>is a thing he says to her whenever he’s feeling a little out of sorts.  He’s not exactly the worst patient she’s ever had, but he’s definitely not the best.  That is, of course, precisely the issue.  He doesn’t want to be her patient—not ever.  He’s her best friend, her husband, her emergency contact but he is </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> her patient.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I’m trying to work out if it’s the flu and you should get tamiflu.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Some congestion.  Mostly just tired.  I’ll take my temperature when I get home.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Which is how she knows he is feeling really bad.  He never volunteers his temperature.  In fact, usually when she asks for it, he makes some sort of crass joke about how she’ll get it only when she takes it from him, ideally rectally.  This usually makes her want to shove him out a window, but it’s a joke that has delighted him since she was a pre-med and it delights him now.  </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Kids are germ farms, </span>
  </em>
  <span>she thinks sadly as she tucks her phone away.  It’s a twenty minute drive home from the middle school where Ben teaches and when he gets home he’s as likely to go and crawl into bed as he is to actually take his temperature.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She continues with her day, checking her phone when she can between patients, but there’s no text from Ben.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She calls him when her shift ends.  “Do you need anything?  Soup?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not really hungry,” he rasps at her.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Babe.”  She’s only ever heard him that raspy once and it was after a shouting match with his uncle.  “Babe, please—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, it’s just vomiting again,” he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How many times?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Twice more this afternoon.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ben.”  She doesn’t even bother to keep her alarm out of her voice.  “Did you take your temperature?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I keep forgetting and having water.”  He pauses.  “I suppose you could get it another way though.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And she rolls her eyes and hears him huff happily into the phone.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stops by the grocery store and picks up some cans of soup and some sports drinks before heading home where she finds Ben, swaddled in four blankets and half-sitting half-lying on the couch, watching football.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fever?” she asks him.  It’s not cold in the house and Ben’s always overheating so to see him wrapped in just that many blankets means he has to be cold.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You tell me,” he grumbles.  She hands him a gatorade and presses a hand to his forehead.  He’s burning up.  “I hate the blue.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They were out of the red.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You forgot I hated the blue, didn’t you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, because I don’t usually buy your gatorade for you, and you will drink it anyway because I want to get sugar into your system.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, doctor.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She glares at him as he tries to smirk at her.  It’d be more effective if he weren’t sweaty and pale from his fever, if his breath didn’t smell lightly of vomit, if she didn’t know he was trying to show he was ok by getting under her skin, little shit that he was.  She leaves him on the couch and goes into the kitchen, unloading the rest of the groceries and sending a text to Finn.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I’m like 80% sure that Ben’s got the flu.  Can you prescribe him some tamiflu?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>No.  Let him suffer.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Send it to the CVS?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Thanks.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He should get swabbed.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The last time he got flu swabbed, he complained for a week about how he could still feel it in his brain.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Finn thinks you should get swabbed,” Rey calls to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Finn can go to hell and you can tell him I said so,” Ben shoots right back and she smiles.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, it’s either getting swabbed or we take your temperature and not the fun way.  Pick your poison.”  She hands him the thermometer and watches as he jams it grumpily under his tongue.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You know, if you’re going to have someone else write the prescription for your drive-by diagnosis, you might as well do it yourself.  You wouldn’t be the first doctor to write something for a family member.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t reply to that.  It’s a weird line; Finn knows it’s a weird line; he doesn’t give up on the weird line, even if he writes Ben the prescriptions.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Instead she goes back into the living room, where Ben is now sitting up a little more so that he can drink his blue Gatorade.  “I’ll sleep on the couch tonight,” he tells her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” she responds firmly.  “You will not.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want to give this to you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Chances are that ship sailed the second you came home.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ben groans.  “No.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry,” she said.  “I’ll wash my hands and stuff but you’ve probably gotten your germs everywhere.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re the </span>
  <em>
    <span>worst</span>
  </em>
  <span> patient in the world when you’re sick,” Ben complains.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am no worse than you,” Rey retorts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re about eighty-nine times worse than me,” he pauses, “Give or take.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Rounding up or down?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Up.”  He snorts.  “Maybe I should make this a word problem on my next test.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe you should,” she says and she grabs her car keys and heads to the door.  “Need anything from the CVS?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Condoms.  Gonna jump you a lot tonight.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ok, casanova.”  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s in the car when the next text comes through.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Love you.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Thank you.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She replies with a string of heart emojis because she knows it’ll annoy him, but she means every one.  Her heart is better when Ben’s around.  And if he’s going to be the world’s most annoying patient, well then she’ll be the world’s most annoying caretaker.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ben coughs all night, and vomits one more time.  He doesn’t quite make it to the toilet, and Rey makes him go back to bed while she bleaches the hallway floor clean again.  She’s definitely going to get sick, but that doesn’t stop her from curling around Ben’s back when she gets back into bed.  He doesn’t usually like being the little spoon.  </span>
  <em>
    <span>I like pressing my dick against you</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he tells her every time she tries to spoon him, but it’s a sign of how out of it he is that he just lets her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neither of them sleep particularly well and when his alarm goes off at five, he texts his principal immediately and says that he’s still dead and won’t be coming into work again.  Rey showers, brushes her teeth, and, for good measure, takes her own temperature.  It’s normal.  She’ll keep an eye on herself all day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She calls Ben at lunch but he doesn’t pick up which means he’s either asleep or watching Sports Center.  When she catches a break midway through the afternoon, she finds a text from him.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Feeling better.  Medicine helping.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>How better.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Annoyed you didn’t pick up the condoms better.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>That feels like a lie.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Better.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She tucks her phone away again and when she gets home, it’s to find him in the kitchen, wrapped in only one blanket and cooking pasta.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She presses a kiss to his cheek.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Any vomit today?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No vomit today,” he replies happily.  “Lots of snuffles but not bad snuffles.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You should probably stay home tomorrow.  You’ll be fine by Monday.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He nods and gives her a sidelong look.  “You’ll be a mess by Monday.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll be fine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>———</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He loves Rey.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He loves Rey a lot.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He loves Rey and would die rather than leave her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But she’s something else when she’s sick.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She starts feeling out of it on Saturday morning, which is right when Ben really starts feeling fine again.  He could have predicted that.  He doesn’t know a lot about biology.  He’s a math guy, though, and there’s an inexplicable graph in his mind involving the rate of his feeling like shit over time overlapping with the rate of Rey’s feeling like shit over time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Another question for a test at some point.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where’s the thermometer?” Rey asks him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You feeling bad?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A little listless.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her temperature is normal, and she is grumpy about that.  Probably because she knows something’s wrong and so she should have the beginnings of a fever, but 99.1 could be fine or could be the beginnings of a fever and the simple fact of that is just too much unknown for her.  She is fine with that unknown when she is not the patient but Rey is the very definition of </span>
  <em>
    <span>doctors make the worst patients.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She takes her temperature again twenty minutes later, and again another twenty minutes after that.  She forgoes breakfast, and coffee because she’s determined to catch the thermometer on an upswing and god Ben hates this part of her pre-sick almost as much as he hates Rey being sick because it’s just </span>
  <em>
    <span>fucking annoying</span>
  </em>
  <span>.  She’s determined to be right and determined to watch herself start to feel worse with numerical evidence. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is how I know you’re actually fine,” he grumbles after temperature-taking number four, when the thermometer produces a resolute 99.1 once again.  She glares at him.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I got your flu.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you though?  You’re feeling listless—maybe it’s just because you keep not having breakfast because you don’t want to make an oral thermometer take the wrong temperature.”  She gives him a look that says, </span>
  <em>
    <span>I know where you’re going with him</span>
  </em>
  <span> which is why he continues and says, “So I say you eat, see if that makes you feel better, and if you don’t, I’ll take your temperature rectally.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Go away,” she mutters, but does, after that, have breakfast, and then waits a whole half hour before taking her temperature again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Still 99.1.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is going to be a long day.  Ben catches up on his work email, follows up on information from his sub about what the classes had been like, updates his lesson plans accordingly, and watches as Rey paces around the house and periodically jams a thermometer under her tongue.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“99.9!” she shouts triumphantly at around noon, which is followed by a pause, then a sigh.  “Damn it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And phase two begins.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Phase two is Rey curled up under every blanket in the house, shivering and aching.  She takes Advil, she drinks lemon ginger tea that Ben makes her, and she vomits twice before the sun sets.  “Have you called Finn?” he asks her gently as she curls up next to him, her face waxen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m getting to it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re unbelievable,” Ben says and he grabs her phone away from her.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, he’s working, I don’t want to bother him!” Rey complains but Ben’s already dialing Finn’s number.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s up, chicken butt?” Finn asks as he picks up the phone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t know I had a chicken butt,” Ben says, rolling his eyes.  “Can you get Rey a prescription of whatever you got me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tamiflu?” Finn asks.  “Yeah, on it.  She sick?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And doing that thing where she tries to stick it out or whatever.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mental,” Finn mutters.  “Utterly mental.”  Because the thing that makes Rey a bad patient during phase two isn’t her need for diagnosis, it’s her need to </span>
  <em>
    <span>survive</span>
  </em>
  <span> it.  Like to prove she’s stronger than it, or some fucking bullshit.  Whenever </span>
  <em>
    <span>he</span>
  </em>
  <span> tries to pull this same fucking bullshit—and he does, he won’t lie—Rey is so quick to tell him he’s proud, stubborn, and stupid.  But she does the exact same thing every time and—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And it’s part of why he loves her.  They’re on a wavelength, which means that when she’s sick, and low, and falling into bad habits, he’s got her back, just like she’s got his.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And sent. Shouldn’t take too long to be read, ” Finn tells him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks,” and Ben hangs up and drops the phone on the bed next to Rey.  “You’re ridiculous.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You love me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Very much.  I’ll be back in half an hour.  Need anything from the CVS?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I never did get you those condoms.  Take me, daddy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He picks her up some red Gatorade, and some saltines because he knows she likes them when she’s feeling sick.  When he gets home, he finds her burrowed with her head under the pillows this time.  He sits down on the bed next to her, rubbing his hand up and down her back.  “You awake?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No.  I’m not alive either.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you vomit again?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tamiflu,” Ben says placing the bottle on the bedside table.  “Gatorade.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She nods under the pillows.  He bends over her to press his face against the pillow and kiss it as though he were kissing her.  Then he leaves her to it.  Sometimes she’s cuddly when she’s sick, but not usually after she’s vomited. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He finishes his lesson stuff, turns on the basketball game and prepares himself for what he thinks will be a lonely evening while Rey convalesces but she comes out of the bedroom, swaddled in blankets before the end of the first quarter and climbs right onto his lap without saying a word.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He presses a kiss to the side of her head, and wraps his arms around her and just holds her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d been wrong.  This wasn’t a the sort of sick where Rey wanted to be left to it, given her space.  This was a </span>
  <em>
    <span>you’re not alone</span>
  </em>
  <span> kind of sick.  </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’ll always take care of you, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he’d told her in their wedding vows.  </span>
  <em>
    <span>When you need it.  When you don’t, you’re on your own because I know you like it better that way.  But when you do, I’m here.  I’ll always be here.  </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Her head begins to loll and her breathing gets a bit snore-y as she fades into sleep in his arm.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ll be better soon,” he whispers to her.  “I was.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She huffs quietly and nuzzles at his neck and sighs.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hope you enjoyed! </p><p>You can find me <a href="http://linktr.ee/crossingwinter">here</a> when I'm not hiding from social media!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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